


and now all i've learned has overturned (what can i do)

by strangesmallbard



Category: The Worst Witch (TV 2017), The Worst Witch - All Media Types
Genre: Emotionally Incompetent Witches, F/F, Fluff and Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-13
Updated: 2018-02-13
Packaged: 2019-03-17 17:27:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,319
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13663821
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strangesmallbard/pseuds/strangesmallbard
Summary: They are wonderful, these nights, if Hecate allows the word to settle in her mind like Morgana settles on the edge of her bed.Only, of course, if don't talk about it. That first day was quite enough for Hecate's ridiculous heart that never, ever learns.





	and now all i've learned has overturned (what can i do)

**Author's Note:**

> UHH hi! i was listening to sleepover by hayley kiyoko before work and thinking about hecate and pippa and wrote a lot of this on the bus on the way home. i'm definitely procrastinating on my multichap, but that's still on schedule to update tomorrow! (maybe late tomorrow.)
> 
> title is absolutely from "lay all your love on me" by abba, who i have irrevocably associated with hecate in my mind. every abba song is about hecate hardbroom, and how gay she is.

Tea once a week. That's how it starts, and that's how it goes, and that's how Hecate's heart is kept lodged firmly between her ribs instead of soaking her sleeve.  
  
It's...safe. It's better, much better than hostility and silence and remembering. She arrives by broom on Friday nights and Hecate pretends she simply fixes her lipstick in preparation for a social meeting, regardless of the fact that she's never cared for primping or social meetings.  
  
She arrives and while their greetings are formal, their smiles are all so bright, almost eager. They talk about their schools, about the many, many mishaps that can happen in castles full of partially learned witches (and...wizards), about Hecate's new publications and Pippa's upcoming book on witching pedagogy. Pippa still moves her hands when she talks, familiar flourishes that pull Hecate back thirty years until she remembers that now she’d be much too afraid to tease her about it. Much too afraid the quips would be taken seriously.  
  
(Her hair, catching the firelight, the way her voice dips at the end of _Hiccup_ , and–)  
  
They are wonderful, these nights, if Hecate allows the word to settle in her mind like Morgana settles on the edge of her bed.  
  
Only, of course, if don't talk about it. That first day was quite enough for Hecate's ridiculous heart that never, ever learns.  
  
"Hecate, I..."  
  
She freezes with her cup in the air, eyes taking in Pippa's wavering smile. She hopes her panic isn't visible, but Pippa was always, once, good at reading her.  
  
"Pipsqueak?" the nickname almost brings her smile back. Almost. "Is there something wrong?"  
  
Pippa fidgets her hands around her tea cup. "No, it's nothing. I'm perfectly fine."  
  
"I..." Hecate swallows and forces the next words out, feels her heart beat and beat and beat.  "After all this," she swallows again and against reason, her heart hopes that Pippa can still read her, "All this time, you deserve...if you need to speak with me about anything, I will listen."  
  
Pippa smiles, sadly, so sadly. "It's not about deserving, Hecate. I promise I'm alright, now let's back to that excellent point regarding the properties of hibiscus root?"  
  
Hecate's tongue ties around facts, safe and durable and hers, and wants so much more than she can say. "If you're certain," she says, pulling her face into a smile. "I'm always here," she adds, wants the words to be true. "Just a mirror away, if you need..."  
  
Pippa starts to reach for her, but settles a hand on her other wrist instead. "I know, Hiccup.”

Hecate watches her hands, and doesn’t say anything back.

It’s the wanting that got her into this mess and left her broken hearted in her bedroom instead of performing the doubles display by her side, and maybe her heart is still there in that lake, waiting, waiting.

 

* * *

 

It does get easier. It does.  
  
It takes takes weeks for them to share anything at all beyond the surface, weeks for pauses and breaks to become companionable silence, weeks for Hecate's heart to simmer and quiet into something manageable.  
  
Nowhere close to sharing Hecate's tiny dorm bed, nowhere close to Pippa reaching over to fix Hecate's (then, always a little unruly) hair, or Hecate hooking their pinkies together, tucking her head into her shoulder when the world gets a little bit too much.  
  
"Oh, _Hiccup,_ do you remember when your Vanishing Potion turned green instead of blue in Year Three?"  
  
Hecate's lips twist, playfully because it's Pippa and Pippa won't laugh. "When your solution was to slide an entire supply of ragweed in the potion and, I quote, _hope for the best?"_  
  
Pippa winks. "Miss Aberforth didn't notice, did she?"  
  
Hecate sighs and raises both of her brows. "That's because she was an incompetent educator who wouldn't know the difference between a Vanishing Potion and the bottom of her own feet."  
  
Pippa smiles, achingly beautiful. "You know, that's almost word for word what you said."  
  
Hecate opens her mouth, no words come out, her own mind turning against her. "Oh?" she says, intelligently. "You remember?"  
  
Pippa shifts in her seat, and her gaze wanders. "Instead of 'the bottom of her own feet,' you said, 'the top of her head.' I laughed and then you laughed too, eventually, and you...do you still snort when you laugh? I remember how much you hated that, but it was so..." she shakes her head. "Beautiful, really."  
  
Those words swarm in her ear and she refuses, absolutely refuses. She rolls her eyes, and runs a finger across the rim of her saucer. "Atrocious, you mean."  
  
Pippa shakes her head, slowly, like she's suddenly not entirely in the room. "No..." she says. "No, I mean beautiful."  
  
_Beautiful_ from Pippa Pentangle is not weightless. Not frivolous or tired or meaningless, as Hecate often associates with the word. It's what she calls the very essence of magic, pushed forward from her own hands. Pippa told her on quieter nights than this, when Hecate's spells weren't coming out quite right, when imminent failure was fraying her nerves.  
  
_Magic is beautiful, Hiccup. It needn't always to make sense or be so practical._  
  
Hecate isn't beautiful.  
  
(it's wonderful until–)  
  
Pippa sighs, too sharp for the room. "You know, many years later, I thought...Well, I thought that maybe…Perhaps...”  
  
Hecate pinches the teacup handle, and tries not to visibly react to how Pippa's forehead tightens, how her eyes shine bright.  
  
"Maybe?" she says, quiet and remarkably even.  
  
Pippa keeps looking. Hecate wants her to both look away and never stop. "That..." she tilts her head and swallows. "That you figured it out. Figured it all out."  
  
Hecate's mouth dries instantly. "Figured what out?"  
  
Pippa wrings her hands together, and clears her throat several times. "Hiccup, I don't want...I don't want us to go back to the way...we’ve been."  
  
Hecate lurches forward and takes her hands, can't believe her own aren't trembling. She almost takes them back, but Pippa holds them, tightly. "We won't," Hecate says, voice traitorously hoarse. "I can't promise that our schools will stay intact long enough for graduation or the," she gestures all around, "earth won't entirely tilt off its axis, but I can promise that I won't. Leave. Not like..." her voice strangles the last word and she shakes her head."  
  
Pippa laughs again, oddly breathless and leans forward to kiss Hecate's cheek. "Poor earth. Not able to keep your promise."  
  
Hecate's mind abandons her completely and it's all she can do to not lift a hand to her cheek like a besotted idiot. "I'm...sure you would save it in just the nick of time."  
  
"With one of your brilliant concoctions," Pippa retorts and they're off again, not talking about it, not needing to.

 

* * *

 

School business crops up and interrupts weekly tea, so Hecate invites Pippa to an end of term staff party. It’s not quite the right time for a talk, but enough of an excuse to invite her. Listen to Ada's suggestion without admitting she thought of it first.  
  
They’re never too far from each other as they wander the room and _mingle_ , that terrible word, and Hecate wants to relax into the evening, but there are eyes still watching, Ada's teasing twinkle and Diminity's curiosity and Algernon’s _why, I didn't even know you were friends_. At the very least, Davina is oblivious.  
  
There's just one comment, not even that, merely a friendly quip, and Hecate transfers without really processing it. Being with Pippa makes her feel like there are years still sprawling ahead of her, but she is no longer young and bullied into tears and these are her colleagues who have long since proved they, for some code-forsaken reason, _like_ her. Enjoy her...company.  
  
Yet, here she is. Cowering against the castle walls with her arms around herself. Nerves knotting over in her stomach, trying to get herself to understand that it's not like before, in secondary school, there’s no one waiting for the opportunity to mock, but–  
  
"Hiccup?"  
  
She lifts her head, and twists her lips up. "Pippa, I'm…” The word twists up in her throat, like it always does, but she needs to be better, needs to give her this. “You deserve...a better night out than your host..." she curves a hand up and allows it to rest on a stone pillar.  
  
Pippa is pink and bright and startling and beautiful and is hiking up her skirt in the tall green grass and Hecate needs to stop staring. "It's not above deserve, Hecate," Pippa says with a small amount of steel in her voice, still holding her skirts.  
  
Hecate raises a brow, feeling warm around her neck. "You do deserve it, though."  
  
Pippa crosses her arms. "What?"  
  
"You deserve," Hecate purses her lips, and lets go of the pillar, "a wonderful night out. You always...loved to go out. I remember."  
  
Pippa takes a step forward, and releases her skirt. Her forehead creases, and she smooths a piece of errant wind-swept hair behind her ear. "I did love to go out, but now I'd much rather stay in with my familiar and a good book."  
  
Hecate furrows her brow. "Then, why did you–"  
  
"It's Friday," Pippa says and gently smirks, only Pippa can't smirk if her life depended on it, so it comes out a smile. "Isn't it?"  
  
Hecate can only nod and reconcile with the fact that her heart won't stop racing any time soon. "It's Friday," she murmurs back.  
  
Pippa holds out a hand. " _I do_ still love to dance, however. If you're feeling the mood. We don't even have to go back inside. She waves a hand and music plays, just around them in a bubble of sound. A soft thing with piano.  
  
Hecate swallows and feels herself peeling slowly off the wall, fights the urge to wrap her arms around herself again. " _Feeling_ the _mood?_ Did you pick that up from a student?”  
  
Pippa's hand still beckons, and she's pulled forward until she's half falling in Pippa's arms, head pressed against her shoulder and trembling from the cold, not from the cold. "I was going to come out here anyway, but they asked me to check on you," she whispers. “They love you very, very much.”  
  
Hecate nods and feels them start to sway. "I’m fine," she says, and finds that it's truer than she expects. "I promise."  
  
Pippa hums close to her ear. "I'll be here when you're not."  
  
Hecate settles and settles and breathes. "You..." she lifts her head and touches Pippa's cheek with just her fingertips, like she always used to. The words are lost.  
  
"I know," Pippa says. "I believe you."

 

* * *

 

They're not having tea this Friday evening. It's not even Friday, or evening.  
  
They're outside, watching clouds.  
  
It's summer vacation and Hecate isn't wearing shoes or stockings, but neither is Pippa. She's turned on her side and watching Hecate as she points out the differences between natural clouds and magical.  
  
"It's all in the shape of–"  
  
"The fluff?"  
  
Hecate glances down, a frown forming on her face. "Clouds are entirely made out of water."  
  
Pippa scoots an inch closer and oh, that's dangerous, she can feel her warm breath and all the ways the sun warms her brown eyes and, oh. "Well, perhaps you recall–"  
  
Hecate barks out a surprising laugh, and looks up at the sky. She's about to snort and covers her mouth with both hands. "Your thirteenth birthday," she almost whispers in the effort to keep from laughing.  
  
Pippa brushes her head against Hecate's shoulder, laughter making her tremble. "When my dad made..." she heaves, "made that!-  
  
"Marshmallow cloud out of actual marshmallows and it fell on–"  
  
"Missy's head!" Pippa nearly shrieks and dissolves into giggles. Hecate pushes her wrist against her forehead and lets the snorts out, best they come and go until the feeling subsides, but oh, her heart feels so _light_ , troubles a million miles away, and–  
  
Pippa's head is still against her shoulder. She's stopped laughing and she’s looking up at Hecate with all the wonder in the world, and Hecate wonders what on earth she could be thinking about to make such an expression. "Pipsqueak?"  
  
Pippa kisses her.  
  
it's light and it's quiet and Hecate's blood might be on fire. It can't be on fire, it's liquid, and it's definitely on fire.  
  
They sit up and Hecate trembles into the kiss and reaches up a hand to hold her cheek, knowing she should stop, knowing she has to before all of the everything she feels comes pouring out, souring the clear blue skies behind the perfect clouds, and Pippa is _kissing her._  
  
Pippa lets go, reluctantly, is that reluctance, that can’t truly be reluctance, and Hecate trembles. Their foreheads are still pressed together.  
  
"Oh," Hecate says, and doesn’t move away.  
  
"That's why you left," Pippa whispers. "It wasn't because of...it was because-"  
  
"Never because of you," Hecate says, definitively at possible. “Never, ever.”  
  
Pippa stares in wonder and Hecate kisses her, and kisses her, and kisses her. She heaves into the kiss and the years fall together, finally silent with home.  
  
Pippa rolls on top of her and blocks out the sun with swaths of bright yellow hair. She pokes Hecate in the chest, and then leans down to kiss where she poked. "You-!"  
  
"Me?" Hecate says, reeling, reeling.  
  
"You're so!" Pippa says, lips brushing up against hers again. Hecate reaches up her hand to rest in the dip on pippa's back and immediately lifts it when she feels her heart leap out of place, filling the whole world with bright yellow and _pink_ and– settle down, settle back, click right into place. Pippa reaches back to still her hand and Hecate kisses her again, long and deep.  
  
"Beautiful," she whispers against Hecate. "You ninny."  
  
Hecate rests her hand, and laughs. When she snorts, Pippa sweetly kisses her neck.


End file.
